E and L Insurance? Having problems!

Stitchercaroline_2

Speaking from personal experience........ DO NOT TOUCH THIS COMPANY WITH A BARGE POLE!!!

Quick enough to take you money but will not pay out when you make a claim, I had to report them to the Financial Services, they then paid out quickly (I would suggest the Financial Services knew of their on-going dodgy dealings)

Welshwoofs

If you are with E&L - get out and get out NOW!!!!

This review site tells you all you need to know - 1 star out of 5 with over 400 reviews:
http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews57547.html

I had awful trouble with them when my dog needed a cruciate ligament repair. They paid £500 odd for the first consultant/x-rays and then promptly sent me a letter excluding anything to do with cruciate, leaving me to pay thousands. They are notorious for not paying out for months upon months, excluding anything and everything the moment they can (which is quickly...since in the small print you'll find their insurance is a rolling 30-day contract). Vets won't risk dealing with them so you'll ALWAYS have to pay up front if you're with E&L.

They are just an awful, awful company and I really don't know how they get away with it.

pastures24

Had Camera insurance with E&L refused my claim and I told them I would not renew in writing but they still went ahead and debited my credit card!!! It is in the hands of the Credit Card company now. I hope they get struck off!!

AJJ001

We had problems a couple of years ago when our dog died of lung cancer. A couple of years prior to his death, he was treated for a "Sebaceous Cyst" which, in layman's terms, is a blocked pore on the skin. E&L would not pay up becuase we had not reported this condition (our position being that as skin conditions were not covered by the policy, why would we). After several e-mail exchanges asking how they could link a skin cyst with cancer they finally admitted that there was no link. A quick copy of this to the FSA with E&L on copy elicited a full payment to me!

But a second cautionary tale. We lost our cat this year and made a claim.

Our policy states a maximum claim of £1,000 per condition, a few lines below, it talks about a fixed excess of £75 then a further excess of 35%. So, the amount of cover provided by E&L is NOT £1,000 it is only £575!

BEWARE

Hillbilly1

The main issue with E&L paying is that if you have a "for life" policy they will want every page of medical history for the whole of the pets life. Have known clients having to get 12 years of history across multiple vets before they'll even look at a claim...

Avoid like the plague. Also be wary of Tesco as another poster has found, cheap initially and then raise prices. I would also check their exclusions. They use the terminology "symptoms the same or similar to" meaning for giardia they would not cover for and GI issues again.

However I would also add Animal Friends to the E&L category. They can afford to give money to charity as they exercise so many clauses and exclusions in their policies they aren't paying it to their clients.

scallaway

I cannot believe this company is still trading!! I have become another one of its latest claimant victims ie my dog was insured with E&L insurance and she suddenly became ill, rushed to own vet then referred to specialist vet who after several diagnostic tests, scans etc, found she was too ill to be operated on and the kindest thing to do was 'put her to sleep'. I had to pay the vet there and then, £1500 (and I had to scrape the barrel to find the funds, and borrowing from my in laws), so put in a claim promptly. So far so good, the insurance company dealt with and after hearing nothing I phoned to be told the claim had been assessed and had gone for payment processing and therein lies the rub - this processing can take several weeks (????) I explained that this was causing financial hardship, didn't cut any ice, that is the system.
I have since found out that this is not new having read all the previous messages about this company in this forum - WHY has no one done anything about it!!! How can we stop other people falling for this company's venus trap - they lure you in with excellent policy cover, cheap premiums but overlook to point out that their claims service is the pits!!!!!

OneOfManyjakes

I have just found out what a waste of time my E and L insurance is. My dog has a long term heart condition and E and L tell me that I must pay my excess out of the 500 pound single condition limit and then pay 35% of the remainder out of what is left. In other words from 5+ years of paying premiums I find that I'm only insured for 280 pounds when something goes wrong. Considering the emergency care last week cost over 800 and that is just the start of the bills I'm obviously not very happy.

I appreciate this is mainly my fault for not going over the small print and being sucked in my the low premium but seriously, is this really legal?

2nd_Time_Lucky

Dreadful company with an appalling reputation in the horse world. Check out the horse and hound forum where there are regular posts challenging anyone with a good experience to post my friends horse ran up 3k with the vet and then was put down. It took 2 years just to settle half the vet bill and they gave up trying for the death payment I can personally highly recommend AIMS who are not on the internet but are part of SEIB.

Another option is not to bother with any cover other than 3rd party and put the premium payments into a ring fenced saving account. That way the treatment and paying for it is totally down to you and most vets give s decent cash discount if you make it clear they are not insured.

~Chameleon~

Unfortunately E&L have had an extremely poor reputation for 30+ years. We refused to take direct insurance claims from clients many years ago because of it and also refused to advertise their merchandise in the surgery. I'm sure they're only still trading due to unsuspecting people being attracted to the cheap premiums.

OneOfManyjakes

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

Unfortunately E&L have had an extremely poor reputation for 30+ years. We refused to take direct insurance claims from clients many years ago because of it and also refused to advertise their merchandise in the surgery. I'm sure they're only still trading due to unsuspecting people being attracted to the cheap premiums.

Thanks very much for your advise. Looks like I'm not the savvy consumer I thought I was. I've been had.

I think most people come across them through perfectly reputable comparison sites like I did. Perhaps if we all pointed our the reputational damage incurred by association they may choose to remove the e and l affiliate links from their sites.

The world has changed a lot in the last 30 years even if e and l has not. Social media makes it very hard for companies to exploit and disregard their customers like this. I see no reason why another generation should be exposed to such poor service and sub standard products from this company.